The Wran release debut album 'The Stone Man'

Hailing from the Comeragh Mountains of County Waterford, The Wran are four brothers: Tommy, Danny, Seán and Stephen Dunford. Today, The Wran release their debut album The Stone Man.

The band have rapidly built a reputation for their immersive live performances and a sound that feels both rooted and otherworldly, with acclaimed performances at festivals including Glastonbury, Green Man, All Together Now and Electric Picnic.

Starting tonight in Dublin, the band embark on an extensive, largely sold-out headline tour across Ireland this month and the UK in November, before support dates with Madra Salach and The Pogues in December.

The Stone Man pulls Irish folk tradition into punk and psychedelia, allowing its songs to grow and transform through atmosphere, rhythm and weight.

Drawing inspiration from Planxty, The Pogues and Lankum, The Wran combine traditional and modern instrumentation with a dedication to keeping Irish songs, language and storytelling alive.

Produced and recorded by Ben Wanders at Wanderland Recording Studios in Limerick, The Stone Man’s songs explore departure, family and home, drawing on local folklore to give Waterford’s lesser-heard stories a wider audience.

“This album is built from the songs we grew up with and found over time. It’s deeply rooted in where we’re from, and it tells stories about people leaving home, the families they left behind, and the longing to return.”

Across The Stone Man, banjo, bouzouki and acoustic guitar intertwine with harmonium, accordion, jaw harp and e-bow drones, while bodhrán, drums and distorted Bass VI bring pulse and weight.

Moving between hypnotic ballads and fierce, driving jigs, The Stone Man is a dark, elemental debut - at once familiar and uncanny.

Opening track ‘Sullivan’s John’ is a dark, hypnotic re-imagining of the iconic Traveller ballad by Pecker Dunne. The song is led by intertwining banjo and delayed guitar over timpani-style drums echoing the tale of John leaving the comforts of home to take up the uncertain, wandering life with the “tinker’s daughter”.

Each verse holds its tension, expanding at its own pace, until it fractures into the slip-jig “Hardiman the Fiddler”, a transition inspired by Jordan O’Leary. With this transition, the drone gives way to a distorted bass and pushing rhythm section, driving the song forward like the roads travelled by Sullivan’s John.

Written as a march for the Dunford family name, original composition ‘Dunford’s March’ is built around bodhrán, banjo, acoustic guitar and harmonium - taking inspiration from the marching tunes and battle music of old Celtic traditions.

‘The Limerick Rake’ takes an Irish street ballad - collected by Colm Ó Lochlainn and dating back to the late eighteenth century - into darker territory. It follows a man looking back on a life of drinking, gambling and romantic escapades, reflecting on his reputation, the people he has wronged and the consequences of his choices, while accepting the fate that awaits him.

Elsewhere, ‘Fear Dearg’ - The Wran’s debut original Irish trad tune - sits somewhere between jaunty and menacing; a fast-paced jig opening with an uneasy landscape of experimental sounds that gathers momentum before bursting into a moving, energetic finale.

Live favourite and old Irish song ‘Some Say The Devil Is Dead’ looks at how evil isn’t always found in places you’d expect. “Sometimes it’s right beside you, in the small hours, in the quiet and the ordinary. It reflects on the thin line between good and bad, light and dark, and how easily one can slip into the other,” the band say.

The Wran's reinterpretation of the 1865 ballad ‘The Waterford Boys’ turns the song into a gritty grunge-trad anthem, carrying its tales of drinking, fighting and life away from home into a heavier contemporary setting rooted in Waterford.

Since their arrival in 2025, The Wran have not stopped. Their debut Irish and UK tours both sold out, and 2026 has seen the band build on that momentum - supporting The Scratch on their UK tour, The Wolfe Tones at Dublin’s 3Arena and Kingfishr, alongside appearances at Interceltique in Lorient, Dranouter in Belgium, the Belfast and Dublin Fleadhs and Moseley Folk & Arts Festival.

The Stone Man is out now. The Wran tour the album this autumn and join Madra Salach and The Pogues for dates in December.

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